Through the Looking Glass
by fifthofnovember
Summary: Spoilers for "Lockdown". That paper-signing scene goes a little bit differently. Graphic het, no other warnings.


Lately, Cameron had found herself wondering more and more frequently if the reason House and Chase had butted heads so often and so violently was because they were so much alike. There was no way Robert, or anyone for that matter, could force her to remain in a relationship she no longer wanted to be in. A relationship is a type of agreement, she reminded herself, in which both parties agree on what to call the relationship, and what sorts of behaviors are expected and appropriate. No agreement, no relationship. Of course Robert didn't see it that way. He had somehow convinced himself that if he refused to sign the divorce papers, a relationship still existed, which was exactly the sort of thing House would do. She could almost picture it, replacing her face with Stacey's, or Cuddy's, or hell; even leaving it in there. After all, House had not accepted her resignation quietly. And Wilson? She knew she'd better not get started on Wilson. How many times had he tried to end his friendship with House? Cameron had long ago concluded that Wilson was friends with House for no other reason than because it was the path of least resistance.

There was no doubt in her mind that Robert was acting just like House, except a sappier version, which was worse by orders of magnitude. It really didn't matter how Cameron had once felt about Robert, or what she remembered about the relationship, or any of the multitudes of minutia he felt were so important. It was all in the past, over and done. If anyone knew about the need for closure, it was Cameron, but this was getting a little too drawn out to be about closure. It had turned into emotional blackmail, and she was angry with herself for getting sucked into it. Just as she'd always been with – she guessed it – House.

Cameron also guessed that "lockdown" didn't mean what she thought it meant, since Robert had just stormed out of the room, papers unsigned yet again, when she had failed to get appropriately nostalgic about their relatiosnhip. When House breezed in before the door had even shut, she found herself wishing for a dictionary.

"What his problem?"

"He doesn't want a divorce. He thinks that by not signing the papers, there won't be one." Cameron put on her most sweetly scathing smile and continued, "It's almost like I was married to you."

"Except I wouldn't cry."

"He was crying?" Her words were laced with exasperation rather than empathy.

"Unless you maced him".

"I didn't have any handy." A knowing glance and a mischievous smile passed between her and House. "By the way, what does 'lockdown' mean to you, exactly, or at all? If I had seen the "fasten seatbelts" sign had been turned off and we were free to roam about the hospital…"

"Same thing it means to you. We're supposed to stay where we are. Were. Whatever. Funny thing about that, though. Most of the people whose job it is to assure we don't wander around aren't out wandering around to make sure we're not."

"So why'd you come in here?"

"Just seeing who was around." House nonchalantly turned the divorce papers towards him and started reading. "I can see why Chase doesn't want to sign these. They aren't even written in English."

"They also aren't your business."

"That's supposed to stop me?"

Fair point. Cameron threw up her hands in resignation. "Whatever. I'm not in the mood to talk about it."

"Maybe I am."

Once again, Cameron didn't know why she even tried. "Then you're going to be talking to yourself." She spun on her heel and turned toward the door with a dramatic flourish, but didn't get much past the 'indignant head toss' portion of her flourish before her hand was smashed against the door frame by House's firm grasp on her wrist. Odd. She'd been so preoccupied with being indignant she hadn't even heard him move.

"We're in lockdown."

Later, she would reflect that this was the point she where she probably should have said something. "I'm leaving" would have been a good start. Pointing out that House wasn't adhering to the lockdown himself would have been stating the obvious as well as being an exercise in futility, but it was also a feasible option, and not an entirely irrational action. Physical resistance could have actually worked.

But she had done none of those. She could never be quite sure what it was that she did do, or maybe she really had done nothing. Maybe she was so tired of talking and thinking and feeling that not reacting was the only reaction she could summon, or maybe she hadn't really wanted to do anything to change the circumstances. She would see-saw from one explanation to another, without ever deciding on one. She would also never remember relaxing ever so slightly and shifting her weight back onto her heels, subconsciously leaning back. It would be House who remembered that. He would also remember what little effort it took to pin her other hand above her head against the door, and the misty impression her palm had briefly left on the glass when he'd finally let go and allowed her to move it. He would remember those things quite clearly.

House stood behind Cameron, patient and unwavering, his eyes boring a hole into her reflected self. He waited for the sign he knew he would get, even though he didn't know what it would look like, but knowing, too, that he'd recognize it when it finally came; the sign that she'd made up her mind not only not to fight, but that she hadn't even wanted to fight. He saw the mirror image of her eyes shatter and disperse, forming a kaleidoscope of abandon in their wake.

He leaned forward then, bending at the elbows and pressing her hands heavier into the glass so that it would appear to anyone outside the room that she had become part of it, and maybe she had. She certainly felt like there was one world within the room, and another without, divided only by a pane of transparency that she was halfway in between. Cameron shifted and straightened her arms, forcing her body back against House's, making the moment perfect in its obviousness. There was no talk of feelings or relationships and no analysis of particular moments which had passed between them, or of this moment. There had never even been a question, but yet, one had been answered.

Cameron lost sight of House's eyes in the ersatz mirror in front of them as he nuzzled her hair aside with his chin and kissed her softly just below her earlobe. She whispered a sigh and closed her eyes. He parted his lips slightly and did it again. At the warm moisture of his mouth, Cameron's breath rushed from her lungs and returned in a deep, slow rhythm. She tilted her head towards her shoulder, inviting and urging. She liked this. It felt good, and she wanted more. There was no more to it than that.

House's right hand abandoned Cameron's wrist and he slipped his arm around her waist, holding her up and against him and concentrated his attentions on the silky side of her neck and on her nape just below her hairline, alternating between gentle kisses and brushes of his lips and sharp nips and scrapes of his teeth until she want slack with pleasure against his arm, not stopping until hers were trembling with the effort of holding herself upright.

She readjusted her weight again as she started to lose strength, sliding her hands down the door with a noticeable squeak and widening her stance in the hope that she could prevent her knees from buckling. House tightened his grip around her waist, and Cameron's tailbone made contact with his hips. That, he liked. Of course the pressure against the seam of his jeans was a little uncomfortable, but if it was the price he had to pay to have Cameron's perfect ass pressed against him, he was willing to suffer a little. He'd always wondered what this would feel like all those times he'd watched her walk (or storm) down the hallway, and now he knew. Yes, it was definitely an acceptable compromise, at least for the moment, and if the way she was squirming against him was any indication, she agreed.

This being a hospital room, of course there was a bed nearby. House, and his leg, briefly considered making use of it, but then decided that this way, pressed against a glass door, standing up, was so much hotter, so much more illicit and dirty, that the idea was scrapped as quickly as it had arisen. Instead of relocating them, he put all of his weight onto his left leg and laced his fingers through Cameron's left hand so that there were now ten fingers of one hand visible on the other side of the glass. Between his left side and her right hand, they were supported in a surprisingly stable yet tenuous three-point stance, each equally dependent on the other for stability. In this position, though, House's right hand was free to do as it pleased, and Cameron was helpless to stop him, lest she be the one responsible for disturbing this delicate balance.

House silently and briefly, very briefly, thanked his physics professor before sliding his hand up Cameron's shirt with no illusion of pretext. When his fingers wriggled under her bra it was clear he'd never needed any, because she very tactlessly maneuvered her upper body in such a way as to make access easier for him. Her breast fit perfectly into his hand, even in the tight confines of her clothing, making him unknowingly smile with appreciation. House palmed her nipple until it was taut and stiff against his skin, and then drew his hand back to catch it between his thumb and finger, rolling and rubbing until Cameron's breath turned as shaky as the rest of her.

Forcing his elbow into a slightly unnatural angle, House made sure to give the other side the same treatment, since it was just as perfect and equally deserving. Again Cameron positioned herself right into his hand and rewarded him by shoving her hips firmly back against his. House briefly regretted his earlier decision about the bed as an image flashed through his mind of Cameron lying beneath him where he could put his mouth all over those perfect breasts, where he could suck and tease until that very same motion would have forced him inside her to the hilt. With a groan of surrender that was almost feral, House let his head sink down and rest on her shoulder, his lips and teeth and tongue feverishly claiming the receptive flesh they found until their breaths were in ragged counterpoint, Cameron's fogging up the glass with every exhale, partially obscuring the view both from and to the world outside.

With a sudden urgency they both felt equally, House unfastened Cameron's pants and gradually worked them down her hips, first one side, then the other, then back to the first, a little more each time until the fabric gave up the battle and surrendered in a puddle at her feet and then his hand was on her, graceless at first, just needing to touch, and then becoming more precise as she guided him, without words but with instinctive motions a bit this way and then a little that, helping him find the spot that felt the best.

The sensation of his fingers worked its way up, as that from his mouth worked its way down, meeting in the middle just under her breastbone and waited there, becoming more insistent with each passing second that she didn't say it. She didn't want to have to, didn't think she should have to, but in the end she was left with no choice, and spoke the only three words between them that would have any meaning when strung one after the other.

"Need you. Now."

His touch left her for a moment that felt too long as House struggled with his own clothing in a flurry of zipping and clinking of his belt buckle. Finally his arm was around her hips again, then a spreading heat and he was all the way inside of her.

The rush was incredible. Despite not wanting to make a sound, the fear of detection paling in comparison to the fear of giving House that sort of satisfaction, she'd thrown her head back and gasped like she'd been thrown into ice water until her body had time to process the shock to her system. Whether it was the years of anticipation, the risk of being caught, her emotions running high, or the mood of the hospital that night, she didn't know, but she'd never had it this good. The word "consummation" came to mind, and she thought that she finally understood its meaning.

House didn't move until Cameron had started to breathe again, and then he started a deliberate rhythm, teasing them both. So slow, so measured, sliding all the way out until she whimpered with the craving to have him back inside of her and his body demanded more of the smooth, tight heat she provided and then all the way back in, deep in, over and over again. He penetrated her not once but dozens of times, each time no less intense than the last. It was torture and all she could do not to beg and plead for more, don't stop this time, god I need it, please, and all he could do not to oblige the plea she didn't make, but it was bliss at the same time. He could have made her come easily, could have let her take him over the edge too when she did, but he loved this feeling too much, this dependency and deprivation, to let it be that easy.

He'd take her nearly all the way there, almost join her himself, he'd let his free hand rub her nipples or stroke her clit until she'd be whimpering under the slightest touch and he could hear the blood rushing in his ears and then he'd stop again half a second before it was too late only to do it all over again. If there had been any drug made that could duplicate this feeling, House would have overdosed long ago, and Cameron would have gone insane exactly halfway between "I can't take it anymore" and "I never want to stop."

Cameron's last semi-coherent thought was something to the effect of "If it would have always been this good, why didn't we do this before?" but deep down, she knew the answer. Before, they'd have been House and Cameron, and there would have been dependency and avoidance and feelings and things to talk about, maybe even papers to sign and discussions to be had. They weren't House and Cameron anymore. They were just a man and a woman now, just two intertwined and interdependent bodies. It was pure and raw and there was nothing to be said or felt except this pleasure. Everything that would have complicated it was gone or outside the door that Cameron leaned against, that world on the other side of the mirror, where there couldn't be ten fingers on one hand.

Orgasm has often been referred to as _la petite mort:_ the little death, so neither was surprised at the sudden onslaught of bright light, only that it persisted beyond the point when eyes had been reopened and refocused and breathing and hearts had returned to a regular rhythm, when legs ached and hands tingled at the restoration of circulation and clothing had been replaced and readjusted. The window had cleared and was now merely glass again. The occupants of the room and the occupants outside the room could see clearly in either direction, and reflections had retreated to whatever place our mirror selves retreat to. The only souvenir of that other place was a moist and ethereal handprint on the door, which had faded to near nothingness by the time Robert Chase walked back through it.

He glanced briefly at Cameron and stared at House as he strode over to the tray the divorce papers still laid on, signed them, and walked back out as though none of them had ever been there at all and time had been erased.

House picked them up, glanced over them and smirked, handing them to Cameron on his way out. For the briefest second, she saw both of their reflections in the door.


End file.
